Avalon - Priestess Of Avalon Part 9

"Come with me-"

I shook my head, not in denial, but confusion. I believed that I had been justified in taking the place of the Beltane Bride because Constantius was the lover promised to me by my vision. But if that was so, then what of the images of foreign lands that I had seen? Much as I loved him, I did not want to leave Avalon.

"What does this mean to you?" Gently I brushed the sign of Mithras on his brow.

For a moment he looked taken aback. I waited as he struggled to frame an answer, understanding how deep was the inhibition against speaking of the Mysteries.

"It is a sign... of my devotion to the G.o.d of Light..." he said finally.

"As this sign signifies my own dedication to the G.o.ddess-" I indicated the blue crescent between my own brows. "I am a priestess of Avalon, and bound by my vows."

"Was it only obedience to your vows that brought you to me last night?" he asked, frowning.

"Can you truly think that, after this morning?" I tried to smile.

"Helena-I beg of you, let there always be truth between us!" His face had gone grim.

For a long moment I met his gaze, wondering how much I dared say. But surely he was going to hear about it as soon as I emerged from the bower and they saw it was not Aelia.

"I took the place of the priestess they meant for your bride. I have the Sight, and it showed me your face long ago. And then I was sent to bring you here, and... I began to love you..."

"You disobeyed?" In his face anxiety warred with satisfaction. "Will they punish you?"

"Even the Lady of Avalon cannot change what has happened between us," I managed a smile. But we both knew that I had not really answered him.

There was a sound outside and I stiffened. Someone was knocking softly against the upright of the door.

"Eilan, can you hear me? Is the Roman asleep?"

It was Aelia's voice, and I remembered suddenly that she had been told that after she lay with him she must make sure Constantius drank the contents of the silver flask in the corner so that he would sleep while she slipped away.

"Eilan, come quickly, and no one will-" She broke off with a gasp. I heard the sound of several people approaching, and the pit of my stomach went suddenly cold. With a leaden certainty I knew it would be Ganeda even before I heard the next words.

"Is she still sleeping? It would seem she did not fear a man's touch so greatly after all. You will have to go in and wake her..." The laughter stilled. "Aelia!"

There was a short, charged, silence. As I started to drape the coverlet around me Constantius gripped my arm.

"You shall not face them alone-"

After a moment I nodded, and waited while he twisted my veil about his loins, reminding me of the statues I had seen in Londinium. One arm went protectively around me. With the other, he pushed aside the woven curtain that covered the doorway, and together we emerged into the uncompromising illumination of the new day.

It was worse than I had expected. Not only Ganeda and the priestesses, but Arganax and his Druids, were standing there. Aelia still crouched by the doorway, weeping silently. I reached down to touch her shoulder and she clung to me.

"I... see..." said the High Priestess in a voice like grating stones. She looked around her at the dancing floor, and I saw that the people who had dropped down to sleep there, in couples or alone, were beginning to awaken and cast curious glances at the scene by the bower. With an obvious effort she controlled the words that trembled on her lips.

"Aelia... and Eilan-" she ground out the names, "-will come with me." Her gaze turned to Constantius. "My lord, the Druids wait to attend you."

His grip on me tightened. "You will not harm her!"

Ganeda's face darkened further as she realized just how much I must have told him.

"Do you think we are barbarians?" she snapped, and he responded to the note of command and let me go, though in truth that was no answer at all.

"It will be all right," I said in a low voice, though my gut was still knotting in apprehension.

"I will not lose you!" Constantius replied, and it occurred to me that not only had I not antic.i.p.ated how this night would bind me to him, I had not even imagined how it might affect his feelings for me.

I helped Aelia to rise, and putting my arm around her, started towards my reckoning.

"Why does it matter?" I exclaimed. "Both of your purposes have been accomplished. You wanted a man of destiny for the Great Rite, and you wanted to win his friendship for Avalon."

The sun was nearing noon, and we were still arguing. By now, my belly was cramping not from fear but from hunger.

"You forget the third reason, and that was the most important of all," Ganeda said grimly. "Constantius was to engender the Child of Prophecy!"

"And so he shall, with me! In my womanhood vision I saw myself with his child!"

"But not the child of the Great Rite-" the High Priestess said grimly. "Why do you think Aelia was intended as his consort in the ritual?"

"Because you could bend her to your will!"

"You little fool-she was chosen, indeed, but not for that reason. In your arrogance you thought you knew better than the Council of Avalon, but you were an untried maiden, ignorant of the Mother's Mysteries. Last night Aelia was at the height of her fertile time. If the Roman had lain with her she would have come away pregnant, and the child would have been born here in Avalon."

"How do you know I am not?"

"Your moontime is barely three days past," she answered me, "and I have examined you. There is no spark of new life in your womb."

"There will be. Destiny cannot be denied-" I answered, but the first breath of doubt stole the force from my words. "Constantius has pledged his faith to me-a priestess will bear his son!"

"But when? Even now do you not understand? A child begotten last night would have preserved the Mysteries for a thousand years. Even if your fantasies were true, what stars will rule the fate of the babe you finally bear?"

"He will be my son," I muttered. "I will raise him to serve the G.o.ds."

Ganeda shook her head in disgust. "I should have sent you back to your father long since. You have been a trouble-maker since the first day you arrived!"

"You missed your chance!" I hissed, touching the crescent on my brow. "He is dead, and I am a priestess now."

"And,I am the Lady of Avalon!" she snapped in return, "and your life is in my hand!"

"All your anger, Ganeda, cannot change what has been done," I said wearily. "At least I have won Constantius's friendship for Avalon."

"And what about that which was undone? Do you think the man will come back every Beltane like a stallion to stud until he gets you with child?"

Some tension eased within me. I had feared she would forbid me ever to see him again. Surely he would come back, I told myself, and somehow I would endure until that day.

"So, what is my punishment?"

"Punishment?" There was venom in her smile. "Did I not promise the Roman I would do you no harm?

You have chosen your own condemnation,Helena . When Constantius leaves, you shall go with him...'

"Leave... Avalon?" I whispered.

"That is what he is demanding-be grateful you are not being turned out like a beggar to wander the world!"

"But what about my vows?"

"You should have thought about your vows last night, before they were broken! In the old days you would have burned for that crime." In her lined face, a sour satisfaction was replacing the fury.

I stared at her. I had disobeyed her order, certainly, but surely I had given myself to Constantius as the G.o.ddess willed.

"You have until the sun goes down to make ready," Ganeda said then. "When the sun goes down and the festival is over, you will be banished from Avalon."

The Christians, I had heard, had a legend that told how the first parents of humankind were exiled from Paradise. When the mists of Avalon closed behind me I understood how they must have felt. Had it comforted Eve to know that Adam was still beside her? Knowing that my own choices had forced this destiny upon me was little comfort.

I told myself that if Constantius had gone alone, leaving me behind, I would have been weeping bitterly, but the grief that kept me numb and silent as the barge bore us through the mists was of a deeper order entirely.

As we slid up onto the sh.o.r.e below the Lake people's village I felt a sudden disorientation, as if one of my senses had disappeared. I staggered, and Constantius lifted me in his arms and bore me up the bank.

When he set me on my feet again I clung to him, trying to understand what had happened to me.

"It is all right," he whispered, holding me against him. "It is all behind us now."

I looked back across the Lake, and realized that the psychic sense that had always told me where to find Avalon was no longer there. Physical sight showed me marshland and blue water, and the beehive huts on the Christian isle. But when I had left before, I had only to close my eyes in order to sense, at an odd angle to the mortal world, the way to Avalon. I had taken the link for granted. Through it, the High Priestess could check on the well-being of her absent daughters, for even when priestesses were sent on errands away from the holy isle a thread of connection remained.

But now, Ganeda had severed it, and I was like a sapling that the flood uproots and whirls away. By the time I ceased my weeping, a cold grey dawn was breaking once more.

I do not know whether the fact that Constantius tolerated me for the next few weeks was a measure of his honour or his love. He told the keeper of the posting-inn where we spent the next night that I was ill, and it was true, though my sickness was not of the body, but of the soul. By day, my only comfort was Eldri's devotion, and by night, the strength of Constantius's arms. And when it became clear to him that it was a constant torture for me to live where every clear day showed me the Vale of Avalon, he concluded his business at the mines and we set out for Eburac.u.m, where the workshops his family owned turned some of the lead into pewterware.

Constantius hired a trader to guide us cross-country through lanes and by-ways to the great Roman road that runs northeast from Lindinis to Lindum. For the first few days I rode in dismal silence, too wrapped up in my own grief to notice my surroundings. Still, if any time of the year could reconcile one to the loss of Avalon, I suppose it must be the smiling season that follows Beltane.

Cold though the wind might sometimes blow, the bone-deep chill of winter was gone. The triumphant sun laid a golden blessing across the land, and the land with joyous abandon made it welcome. The brilliant green of new leaves resounded with the songs of returning birds, and every hedgerow and woodland ride was adorned with flowers. As day followed glorious day, my body, like the earth, responded to that radiant light.

For so long-too long-I had searched out herbs only for their utility. Now I picked the creamy primroses and the nodding bluebells, bright celandine and hidden violets and forget-me-nots like pieces of fallen sky, for no other reason than that they were beautiful. The training of Avalon was intended to develop the spirit, and all the resources of mind and body were put at its service, under the direction of a disciplined will. The needs of the flesh were given grudging recognition only at the festivals, and those of the heart, no honour at all. But Constantius had conquered my awakening senses, and my heart was carried along in their triumph, a willing prisoner. I made no attempt at resistance: banished from the realm of the spirit, the world and its pleasures were all that remained to me.

We travelled slowly, staying sometimes at villas and farmsteads, and sometimes sleeping under the stars in some woodland thicket or in a field by the side of the road. The first significant town along our route was Aquae Sulis, tucked into the hills where the Abona curved round on its way to the Sabrina estuary. I know now that it was a small place, but at the time I was impressed by its elegance. Since ancient times the healing springs had been considered holy, but the Romans, for whom bathing was a social necessity, had made of the place a spa that could compete with any in the Empire.

As we rode in I marvelled at the buildings, constructed from warm golden stone. The people who thronged the streets were well-dressed, and I became abruptly conscious of what a week of journeying had done to my only gown. And my hair-I drew my veil up hastily, and nudged my pony closer to Constantius's mule.

"My lord-"

He turned with a smile, and I was surprised by how naturally he fitted into this civilized scene.

"Constantius, we cannot stay here. I have nothing towear ."

"That is precisely why I wanted to stop here, my love," he grinned back at me. "It's little enough I have to offer in return for all you have given up for me, but Aquae Sulis contains, in miniature, the best of the Empire. I have enough funds for us to stay for a few days in a decent inn, and enjoy the baths, and buy clothing that will do justice to your beauty."

I began to protest, but he shook his head. "When we arrive at Eburac.u.m, I will be introducing you to my a.s.sociates in business, and you must do me credit. Think of the shopping as something you can do forme .".

I sat back in the saddle, my face flaming. It was still a wonder to be reminded that he thought me beautiful. I did not know if it was true-there were no mirrors on Avalon-but it mattered little so long as I found favour in his eyes.

Shopping in Aquae Sulis was rather overwhelming to one who had grown up with one gown for everyday and one for ritual, though even Constantius widened his eyes at the prices. I came away with a tunica the colour of terra cotta, banded at the hem with green and gold, and a palla of green wool to wear with it, and another ensemble in the rosy shades of dawn. I acceded willingly to whatever Constantius wanted me to wear, so long as it was not priestess-blue.

Leaving Eldri to guard our gear in the inn, we dined in the garden of a taverna on the main street, and then proceeded to the temple complex that included the baths. It was becoming clear that Aquae Sulis was not an ordinary Roman town. Dominated by the religious buildings that had grown up around the sacred spring, it was as dedicated, in its own way, as Avalon. I was accustomed to fine stonework, though the carvings that adorned the buildings seemed ornate after the stark simplicity of the isle. And though it was true that my people had carved images of their deities, the Druids of Avalon taught that the G.o.ds were most truly worshipped beneath the open sky.

Thus, I could tell myself that the image of Sulis Minerva that stood in the roundtholos in the square before the bath precincts was only a statue, though I avoided meeting the calm gaze of the bronze head beneath the gilded helmet as I hurried by. I hung back as Constantius purchased a bag of incense to cast on the fire that burned on the altar in the courtyard, resenting his unselfconscious piety even as I admired it. But what had such observances to do with me, who had known the Mysteries of Avalon?Known, and lost them ... a deeper self reminded me. Very well, I told myself, I would learn to survive with no G.o.ds at all.

A Gorgon-face glared fiercely from the portico of the temple, its hair and beard writhing in contorted rays. Another solar deity reigned from the arch that led into the baths. For Constantius's sake, I thought then, I might make an exception of that one.

He paid our fees and we pa.s.sed beneath the arch, and I coughed at the sudden gust of moist, heated air.

It had a faint odour of old eggs, not strong enough to be unpleasant, but distinctly medicinal. Before us, glimmering faintly in the light that came through the high arched window, lay the sacred pool.

"The water rises here and is piped to the other pools," said Constantius. "This place has been sacred since long before the Divine Julius brought his legions to this isle. It is customary to make an offering..."

He opened his pouch and took out two silver denarii. Other coins gleamed from the bottom of the pool along with lead votive tablets and other offerings. He drew the hood of his cloak up over his head, his lips moving silently, and tossed his denarius in. I followed his example, though I had no prayer to offer, only a voiceless need.

"You are in luck: the attendant told me that the hot pools are reserved for women at this hour. I will go to the steam room at the other end of the baths and meet you at sunset by the altar outside." Coristantius squeezed my hand and turned away.

For a moment I wanted to call him back again. But after a week on the road all other considerations were overwhelmed by the desire to get truly clean. I turned in the other direction and pa.s.sed from the first chamber into the colonnade adjoining the large pool. Talk in the taverna had suggested that it was early in the season for the numbers of visitors the baths were built to receive. The warm pool was almost empty, its water green where sunlight slanted in from above, its sides mysteriously shadowed by the colonnade. I continued around it, looking for the smaller pools I had been told lay beyond it.

The pool I chose was heated by water that rushed from beneath a stone slab, its stones blurred by an accretion of minerals from the spring. It reminded me of the Holy Well at Avalon, but this water was as warm as blood. Sinking into its embrace was like a return to the womb.

I lay back with my head on the smooth curve of the coping, letting the water support my body, and muscles I had not known were tense began to unkink at last. The two women who had been soaking when I arrived climbed out of the pool and went off, chattering about a new cook. A slave girl came in with an armload of towels, saw I needed no a.s.sistance, and departed. The water grew still. I was alone.

For a timeless interval I floated, without need or desire. In that moment, undisturbed by demands from either mind or body, I did not realize that the defences I had thrown up around my spirit were dissolving away. The gentle lapping of wavelets against stone faded, until the murmur of the water flowing into the pool was the only sound.

And after a while that subtle murmur became a song- "Ever flowing, ever growing, from the earth to the sea, ever falling,ever calling ever coming to be..."

I relaxed into the music, and without intention, my soul stirred and reached out to the spirit of the waters.

The singing continued. I found myself smiling, uncertain whether my own imagination was supplying words to the music or I was indeed hearing the voice of the spring. Now new words were whispering through the hushed trickle- "Ever living, ever giving, all my children are free; ever turning, ever yearning, they return unto me ..."

But I was cut off from that eternal source, and forbidden to return. At that, a great grief rose up in me, and the tears rolled down my cheeks and mingled with the waters of the G.o.ddess in the pool.

It seemed an eternity before the slave girl came back into the chamber, but I suppose that in truth not so much time had pa.s.sed. I felt empty, and when I left the water and saw the blood running down my inner thighs, I realized that I was empty in truth. Ganeda had been right in her calculations, and despite the ecstasy of our loving, Constantius had not got me with child.

When the girl had provided me with clouts and padding, I sat for a long time in the moist shadow, gazing at the swirling waters and waiting for more tears to come. But for the moment I had no more emotion.

My life stretched before me, devoid of magic. But not, I reminded myself, of love. By now, Constantius would be waiting. It was not he who had broken my heart-I had done that all by myself.

Deceived, lured from his ordinary world into Avalon and then burdened with a disgraced and weeping priestess when he left it, Constantius had not complained. He at least deserved a cheerful companion. By this time my hair was drying, the shorter strands curling in moist tendrils around my brow. I called to the slave girl once more to dress it high with pins and help me to disguise my puffy eyes with kohl and my pale cheeks with rouge. When I looked into the bronze mirror I saw a fashionable stranger.

When I came out of the baths the sun was about to sink behind the hills that sheltered the town. I turned from the dazzle of light and stopped short, facing a pediment that was the twin to the one that led to the sacred spring. But here, the dominant figure was a G.o.ddess, her hair twisted up on each side and caught in the middle by a ring. She was haloed by a crescent moon.

For a moment I simply stood, staring, as a traveller will stop who suddenly glimpses someone from home. Then I remembered how I had come here.

"It will do you little good, Lady, to lie in wait for me," I said softly. "It is you who cast me out-I owe you no loyalty!"